Ted Nugent’s Open Letter to Joe Biden

Congratulations on your appointment to lead a presidential commission to end gun-related violence.

As a National Rifle Association board member, husband, father, grandfather, law enforcement officer and genuinely concerned American, I too want nothing more than to see evil, senseless massacres stopped. I concur with the president and caring people everywhere: It’s time to end these slaughters . . .

As you gather your team to study massacres and how to stop them, I offer to you my services and a lifetime of expertise on guns in all their implementations. While I strongly differ with President Obama on many issues, I agree with him that we must work with all we can possibly muster to end these tragedies.

As you begin to formulate your thoughts on how to proceed with your task, I hope your starting point is to provide the president with the facts regarding these slaughters and to offer him common-sense recommendations that are void of a political agenda and will actually make a meaningful difference. If the American people smell a political agenda here, that will only bog down our efforts.

In the spirit of goodwill and a deep desire to end gut-wrenching, incredibly sad and senseless rampages, I offer you the following recommendations:

I encourage you to persuade the president to lead this effort by providing a number of public service announcements. The announcements should include watching out for each other, encouraging parents to be more involved in their children’s lives regarding entertainment choices, and knowing various indicators we should watch for in people who are unstable.

Clearly, the focus on solving these mass murders must be on the mentally ill. In almost every instance of mass killing, there were ample red flags and warning alarms that either were avoided or were not acted upon by mental health professionals, family members, friends and acquaintances. While I deeply respect an individual’s privacy and civil liberties, the American people need basic awareness of what indicators to look for regarding potentially violent, psychotic people. Our collective safety begins with being collectively vigilant.

You will find in your assessment that all of the massacres have occurred in gun-free zones. What gun-free zones create is an environment where good people are unarmed and virtually defenseless against an unstable person intent on committing mass murder. Gun-free zones are modern killing fields. I implore you to recommend that Congress pass a law to ban gun-free zones immediately.

Just like your full-time, armed security detail, qualified citizens with authorized, legal concealed-carry permits should be able to carry weapons virtually everywhere to protect themselves, their loved ones and innocents.

I also implore you to strongly consider recommending that trained school officials have access to weapons to protect students. Just as airline pilots may have access to a weapon to prevent another Sept. 11 mass murder, school officials also should be trained to stop shooting sprees at our schools.

I don’t encourage you to recommend a ban on any weapon, magazine capacity or type of ammunition. That won’t accomplish anything other than prevent the 99.9 percent of responsible, law-abiding Americans from enjoying these modern weapons as we do now. We should never recommend or develop public policy that restricts the rights of the good guys based upon what evil people do or might do. If that were the case, alcohol still would be banned. As you may know, drunk drivers kill an estimated 12,000 Americans each year and hurt tens of thousands more.

I encourage you also to keep this misnamed “gun violence” in perspective. While all deaths are tragic, the vast majority of gun-related murders and violence are committed by gang members who do not use guns that look like — but do not perform like — military assault weapons. The majority of crimes that involve a firearm are committed with handguns. I concurred with you back in 2008 when you stated, “If [Mr. Obama] tries to fool with my Beretta, he’s got a problem.” I trust you still maintain those sentiments.

Again, I offer you my services and a lifetime of expertise. I look forward to hearing from you.

I do wonder who ghost wrote it for him. Maybe it’s out there, but I’ve never seen or heard anything from sweaty Teddy that lasted more than a paragraph before devolving into his highly amusing but cringesome persona. From Cal Jam II onward, every interview, you’re not laughing with him, you’re laughing at him. Then one remembers what Ted’s drug of choice is and wonders if perhaps he has something in common with Henry the VIII and Ivan the Terrible. Medically speaking.

Maybe there really is a literate, rational, well-spoken guy buried under all that desperation to remain relevant 35 years after his fame passed. Stranger things have happened I guess.

Dunno, but Cheech Marin, who made millions with and Tommy Chong as Cheech & Chong is a pretty intelligent guy. His druggie character never hinted at that, and if he had really lived the part… who knows how many brain cells would have died… and left him unintelligent.

His original deference was for ‘family dependency’ or some such. Basically, he had 3 or 4 kids and was rather broke at the start of the war. So he stayed home and made movies. Maybe some USO stuff too. But he got at least one or two more deferrals, for non-medical reasons.

If you read his bio (John Wayne) his studio RKO used their influence to keep him out. They had lost a substantial amount of actors enlisting in the war, and didn’t want to lose him. He knew what was going on, and later expressed that he felt he had let his country down. That is why he did so many war movies, as his way of paying tribute to those that served!

We like amendments, right? Isn’t there one about involuntary servitude?
Resisting, evading the draft was no different than a black man heading north in 1859 (Dredd Scott can show a corrupt SCOTUS)
A war that is just will have volunteers. The Viet Nam draft violated the 14th ammendment. So let us stay consistant repeal the sixteenth.

I do, however, have a problem with this line and the premise behind it:
“…encouraging parents to be more involved in their children’s lives regarding entertainment choices…”

I think this line of thinking is a red herring. Of course parents should be (very) involved in their children’s lives, but I firmly believe that some people (including children) are just broken, but most are not. No amount of encouraging (forcing) a broken child to play with My Little Pony instead of Modern Warfare 3 is going to fix him, and conversely, the unbroken child could play MW3 20 hours a day for a month, and although it’d probably turn him into a little asshole — seriously, have you heard the way these people talk to each other? — it won’t make him go on a shooting spree.

I’m not so sure it’s a red herring. Ted has much first hand knowledge about bad choices teens make at entertainment events. Because back in the day, that bad choice was often Ted.

Back in the late 70s he got himself appointed legal guardian of this 17 year old chick he hooked up with because he couldn’t marry her. Which isn’t quite as bad as it sounds, he was only like 30 at the time, and unlike the usual crowd of 15-19 year olds backstage, he did try to keep that one for more than a few hours.

16V and Chaz: There’s a big difference between what we’re talking about here and what people do at rock concerts (and what rockers do). I’m not talking about poor life choices or children becoming more “aggressive, fearful, or emotional.” I’m talking about those that go far beyond that. I’m talking about genuinely, truly broken.

Violent video games may make your kid into an angry little shit, but it’s not going to make him snap out and machine gun his 8th grade classroom. Even those that act out, get in fights, drink/drugs, etc., understand that there is a line that you just don’t cross. Crossing that line takes a special kind of person. Look at the people behind the last few shootings. They may have been angry or felt picked on or whatever, but they were also completely, possibly irretrievably broken. They were broken in such a way that I believe that even if you took their Modern Warfare away, if they didn’t get some other form of help, the result would not have ended much differently. The games (or movies) did not make them do what they did. Maybe it gave them some ideas, but you’ll never remove every source of evil ideas. There’s always another movie or video game, and there always will be.

Understand that I’m not disagreeing with the link between media violence and personality. Someone who does nothing but play MW3 and order pizza will eventually come to feel that the entire world relates by calling each other “fag.” It’s their only frame of reference. While that may make them socially unacceptable, it’s not going to turn them into a crazy mass murderer. I don’t know what flips that switch, but it’s not just a few violent video games or movies, and blaming violent video games for Adam Lanza or James Holmes or Seung-Hui Cho is simplistic and an “easy out.” There were far, far greater issues in play.

It’s Atrocious Theodocious. Anything even purported to be from the mouth of the loin-cloth-wearing-rope-swinging-bundle-of-hypersomething should be taken with a grain of salt that weighs 50 pounds. And some Ciprofloxacin.

The only part of child psychology that Da Nuge has any demonstrated grip on, is how to get them naked back stage, and then maybe follow him onto the tour bus for an extended Wango Tango.

I understand and share your point about some kids being broken, and there’s certainly a lot of science to kick around. But to me, using Nugent as a springboard to talking about children’s mental health is like using Python’s Dead Parrot sketch as a lead-in to animal welfare issues.

No matter how valid the point, it will be lost due to the delivery device.

Nah, not too seriously. I was just considering the argument, regardless of the source. While it was only one phrase of one sentence, still when I read it I had a flashback to Wayne LaPierre’s angry old man rant against video games in the NRA press conference the other day, and my response was thus a response to that as well as its repetition in this case. To me it just seems like a distraction from the real issues.

Even those that act out, get in fights, drink/drugs, etc., understand that there is a line that you just don’t cross. Crossing that line takes a special kind of person.

In that vein psychologist Martha Stout in her book The Sociopath Next Door notes that: “4 percent of ordinary people — one in twenty-five — has an often undetected mental disorder, the chief symptom of which is that that person possesses no conscience. He or she has no ability whatsoever to feel shame, guilt, or remorse. One in twenty-five everyday Americans, therefore, is secretly a sociopath. They could be your colleague, your neighbor, even family. And they can do literally anything at all and feel absolutely no guilt.”

It’s my understanding that Cho (Virginia Tech) had no interest in video games, despite Dr Phil immediately getting in the picture and mentioning games specifically among violent media as a cause. He spoke too soon from my understanding of the info on Cho, didn’t bother “correcting” everything, and thus, to me, has shown him as someone who doesn’t care to know the facts.

While spinning simplistic ‘common sense’ yarns for simple problems may be great TV for the Jersey Shore cretins, it ain’t competent therapy.

He has precisely NO license to practice in CA (or anywhere else), and “gave up” his TX license after an “incident” and investigation. Coupled with the fact he really never really practiced – he used his degree to promote pop-sci “Pathways” nonsense and then moved on to founding a court consulting company.

That anyone would take that dolt for anything more than Jerry Springer with a PhD is beyond the pale.

Wise, then, — the NRA, that is. Firearms are weapons only when used or carried for offensive or defensive purpose. Check case-law in your state re: bench-definitions of ‘weapons’. Here in the Soviet Commonwealth of Massachuzestan, case law makes it clear that lighted cigarettes, riding crops, concrete sidewalks, german shepherds, and bull terriers (etc.) can be countenanced as ‘weapons’ for the purposes of criminal prosecution/liability. *Anything* can be a ‘weapon’, and judicially what makes W a weapon at any given time-T is the fact that it was carried or brandished to threaten harm, or was in fact used in the commission of an assault. We gun owners can do themselves a huge favour by referring to firearms as ‘firearms’ except when it is strictly appropriate to refer to them as members of the ad hoc class of things known as ‘weapons’. This isn’t pussy-footing around the issue, or giving-in to Liberal nonsense; but the more we (the gun owners) cultivate in the minds of gun-haters the habit of thinking of firearms as just plain firearms – as tools – the easier we make it own ourselves. The guns in my safe are guns; the one on my hip is also a firearm-only, and is a defensive weapon only prospectively/potentially. I do not and never have owned ‘assault weapons’ — my DPMS AR and H&K-clone (PTR-71) are semi-automatic rifles: they are not used to commission assaults, they are not used to repel assaults, and to the extent that they are not part of my home-defense/PD arsenal, they are not even (prospectively) ‘defensive weapons’. They’re just rifles. This is the way forward with a hopelessly biased media — and it is the way that best accords with facts. RH

It’s hard to imagine The Nug wrote that on his own, not enough profanity and insults. I do however appreciate that maybe he is realizing that the “old Ted” wasn’t exactly effective, and you can, in actuality, catch more flies with honey.

I will have a lot more respect for the guy if he can become a more effective spokesperson for gun rights, and not the guy we are hoping DOESN’T show up to make us all look like asshole nut jobs.

Time there was, when adult/lawful access to firearms – all sorts – was much easier than it is today. Why, then, the spate of school-shootings? Factors include:

1. Parenting has changed. Children are now supposed active stake-holders in the parenting process. That’s like saying that plants should cultivate themselves, or that puppies are active stake-holders in their own house-breaking. Childhood is preparation for adulthood, and parents need to take parenting as a full-time job. If the parents of Kleebold & Harris had been doing their part, Columbine wouldn’t had happened.

2. Schools are supposed to be institutions run by adults for the thoughtful creation of future adults. They are not supposed to be societies in miniature, run by and for adolescents. Aye, we can (and should) keep God and the Bible out of public schools; but if parents are being parents, and educators are being educators, and all adult parties are actively involved in the cultivation (per contra: the indoctrination) process, we’re unlike to have many of the problems we have today. Halo and Call of Duty aren’t the problem; but parents who don’t mind excessive entertainment onanism on the part of their offspring are.

3. Check out the work of Craig A Anderson, at Iowa State. He’s an “expert” in the putative relationship between video-games and ‘violence’. The data is inconclusive, but what is most noteworthy about his research (and that of others) is how weak it is. Theories of violence and aggression are thick with norms — and bad reasoning, and sloppy distinction-making. Nonetheless, the whole debate about so-called “gun violence” is being hi-jacked by “experts” — and to whom does a panicked, frightened public turn in times of crisis?

My question for Mr F and the TTAG community is: How do we effectively win this battle, without tactics that serve only to alienate the broader community? I suggest that one thing we can and must do is defuse and refocus the entire ‘violence’ program, and call bullshit on the whole “aetiology of violence” thing.

Here (in closing) is what I mean:
– There can be a “violent wind” howling at night, and a yard free of branches and arboreal detritus in the morning. ‘Violent’ as an adjective never necessarily implies damage- or harm-causing; but the “violence studies project” of social psychologists (et al) has succeeded in linking ‘violence’ to harm-causing, and all harm-causing to wrong-causing — even though common sense shows otherwise.

– A ‘violent hit’ on a wide receiver means only that it was a hard hit; there is no
logical implication that the tackle was wrongful, unsportsmanlike, or even harm/injury causing. ‘Violent’ is a sometimes useful adjective; ‘violently’ is a sometimes useful adverb; but there is no such thing as Violence — except conceptually. We need to help reign-in the parameters of that concept.

– Imagine a Marine sniper — a great dad/husband, great friend, and all-around good guy. His job entails intentional execution of enemy combatants. Does it follow that he is a “violent individual”? Does the fact that he kills for a living make him “prone to violence”? Is he himself “aggressive”? No — of course not. Not necessarily, at least. Are his acts of intentional (and morally-approved) homicide “acts of violence”? In one trivial sense only, yes. But the larger point is,

(a) The Biden brain-trust is getting ropey intel from “experts” who no longer acknowledge that the common enemy here isn’t “violence”, because there is no such thing: There are only acts that may rightly be described as “violent”, some of which are “justifiable” (cop takes-down an armed perp) or “unjustifiable” (Lanza and company) — that they are “acts of violence” tells us nothing.

(b) We are right to be concerned with wrongful harm-causing, in all its manifestations — whether those wrongful harm-causings are occasioned by firearms, or by Facebook (e.g., cyber-bullying). But there is no spectre of Violence hovering around us — and if the stakes weren’t so high, this would all be laughable.

“Violence”-prevention – absent a specific target, a specifiable form of wrongful-harm – is like that nonsense you see on Ghost Hunters. *Ghosts do not exist*, even if it is not total nonsense to refer to “paranormal phenomena”, which means that the phenomena are not normal — whatever that is. Want to eliminate paranormal phenomena? Get some insulation; call a carpenter or an electrician — but not a ghostbuster or an exorcist. Want to eliminate “gun violence”? Tackle mental illness, and the illicit access on the part of criminals to firearms.

Want to make a dent in misadventures with firearms? Insist that parents be parents, schools be schools, and that “experts” in “Violence Studies” de-politicize their work.

Gun violence is a red-herring, and 90% of the reason why is that ‘Violence’ in the abstract, as a conceptual bogeyman cooked-up by bad social/behavioural science, is a red herring.

I beg to differ with you on the subject of God and the Bible in public schools. Even if I did not believe in God I would be struck by the sudden downturn in the U.S.’s morals since the Bible and prayer were forced out of public schools. These are some of the tidbits I gleaned from a video that I will mention later.

Church of the Holy Trinity vs. U.S. 1892

“No purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national, because this is a religious people… This is a Christian nation.”

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I recommend that you view this video on youtube. This is the first of six parts. It reviews America’s history and the Founders views on the purpose of the Christian religion in America. It’s called America’s Godly Heritage.

Even if I weren’t a Christian, I would want the Bible back in school for no other reason but that it produces the results we all want. Personally, my solution would be to privatize all public schools and let parents decide whether to send their children to private school or home school and abolish all taxes that are supposedly for school maintenance and staff salaries.

Gun free/criminal safe zones are a liberal bastian & unless dick & jane change their minds about gangbangers being shot, are not going anywhere without a lot of help. Common sense dies a lonely death on the whitehouse steps, Randy

Offered here, a simple formula for problem solving:
Identify the problem. Decide what to do. Formulate a plan. Predict the outcome. Execute the plan. Evaluate the results.
( Note that in significant measure, success in application of the problem solving formula requires the problem to first be correctly and accurately identified. )
Simple question as follows:
“Is the term ‘Gun Violence’, as in a ’Gun Violence Task Force’ a correct and accurate identification of the problem?”

Here is the bottyom line. We can expect Obama, the guy that created Fast and Furious, to declare war on the American people and the 2nd Amendment. He will try and disarm us. Everyone must decide what they will do when your guns are actually banned. They won’t come for them to your house. They will take a few gun owners and make an example of them. They will throw them in prision for 10 yrs and fine them thousands of dollars for having an illegal weapon. Your no gun owning friends will be encouraged to turn you in for a reward of a $500 gift card to Walmart or something of the sort. So you can’t bring them out to use them. Now is the hour, now is the time, now its your decision to stand where our founding fathers stood.

Obo/Holder didn’t invent F&F. It was a continuation/expansion of a Bush-era program called Wide Receiver.

I don’t like the guy one bit. But if you want to have any chance of getting intelligent folks to our side, lay off the Kenyan Muslim nonsense and focus on the facts. There’s plenty of non-arguable reasons to find his policies and viewpoints wrong.